Compare And Contrast Conservatism And Traditionalism
By the end of World War II, no cohesive conservative force existed in American politics. Rather, various diverse semi-conservative ideologies existed in relative isolation from one another. Conservatism was a weak and unfocused philosophy without a unifying voice. The Right side of the intellectual landscape was so bleak that “the American Conservative has yet to discover conservatism.”
The aimlessness of American conservatism in the mid-1900s can be attributed to the division of conservative thought between two distinct branches: Traditionalism and Classic Libertarianism. Each branch promoted a unique ideology that it saw as the central philosophy of conservative thought. Despite their fundamental differences, the two groups found common ground in an aversion to liberal values and socialism abroad.
Traditionalists catered to groups and individuals that felt neglected by the secular trends that had emerged in a modernizing and materialistic society. They encouraged a reversion to the traditional ‘religious and ethical …show more content…
Distrustful of Roosevelt’s New Deal policies, classical liberals and libertarians championed free-market principles and condemned what they saw as the government’s march to socialism through central planning. Though he was critical of the overarching ‘conservative’ label, Friedrich Hayek solidified the classical libertarian conviction through his work, The Road to Serfdom, which became a rallying cry for those who opposed an all-powerful centralized government. Hayek claimed that, “economic planning” was not only an imposition on human freedom, but was also, more perilously, “the control of the means for all our ends.” Libertarians criticized the liberal belief in ‘relativism’ and advocated the acceptance of ‘natural right’ in order to avoid irresponsible
The aimlessness of American conservatism in the mid-1900s can be attributed to the division of conservative thought between two distinct branches: Traditionalism and Classic Libertarianism. Each branch promoted a unique ideology that it saw as the central philosophy of conservative thought. Despite their fundamental differences, the two groups found common ground in an aversion to liberal values and socialism abroad.
Traditionalists catered to groups and individuals that felt neglected by the secular trends that had emerged in a modernizing and materialistic society. They encouraged a reversion to the traditional ‘religious and ethical …show more content…
Distrustful of Roosevelt’s New Deal policies, classical liberals and libertarians championed free-market principles and condemned what they saw as the government’s march to socialism through central planning. Though he was critical of the overarching ‘conservative’ label, Friedrich Hayek solidified the classical libertarian conviction through his work, The Road to Serfdom, which became a rallying cry for those who opposed an all-powerful centralized government. Hayek claimed that, “economic planning” was not only an imposition on human freedom, but was also, more perilously, “the control of the means for all our ends.” Libertarians criticized the liberal belief in ‘relativism’ and advocated the acceptance of ‘natural right’ in order to avoid irresponsible